David O. Stewart

Things have been going pretty well at this site, with traffic building steadily through the year. But now, I must confess, there will be an interruption in service. Next Thursday, I am flying to Warsaw, where I will meet my older son and begin a month-long trek through Eastern Europe trying to track down some…

The War Powers Commission — a privately-funded group of highly distinguished types — issued a report this week calling for the repeal of the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which sets out the legal framework for America’s decisions to go to war. Chaired by former Secretaries of State James Baker and Warren Christopher, the Commission…

In two weeks and two days (who’s counting?), I will head out for Warsaw, Poland, for a bicycle trip through Eastern Europe! The journey has several elements. First, of course, is the adventure of the ride, which will take us from Warsaw to Odessa on the Black Sea. Because we’re going through Budapest, it’s about…

Alert Reader Ron Brown of Illinois brought to my attention a recent article by Jack Rakove (a distinguished legal historian at Stanford University, and my client in the Guantanamo case) on Heller v. District of Columbia. The decision, as you all likely know, is a landmark finding that the Second Amendment created a personal right…

The Mountain Road is a remarkably prescient, sensitive, and insightful look at American military intervention in Asia. The 1960 movie, starring James Stewart, follows a demolition team that is trying to cover the retreat of the Chinese Nationalist Army in World War II, by blowing up the mountain road of the title. I caught it…

In a little over three weeks, I’ll be setting off on a trip through Eastern Europe, and through history. Our oldest son, Matt, and I will meet in Warsaw with our bicycles. We will set off to my grandfather’s home town, Czyzew-Osada, to see what we can see. Only in the last week, I have…

This week’s big Supreme Court rulings demand some attention, and did some remarkable things: — Interpreting the Second Amendment for the first time in 1939, the Justices voted 5-4 that the provision creates a personal right to own guns, though that right may be regulated for common safety. District of Columbia v. Heller. — Interpreting…

Well, I missed it by three days, too. June 21 is the anniversary of the ratification of the Constitution! On that date in 1788, the New Hamphshire Convention ratified the new national charter, becoming the ninth state to do so. Under the Constitution’s own terms, it went into effect with ratification by nine of the…

In preparation for a panel I’m doing tomorrow at the First Amendment Center at the Newseum here in Washington, I just read Liberty’s Blueprint: How Madison and Jefferson Wrote the Federalist Papers, Defined the Constitution, and Made Democracy Safe for the World, by Michael Meyerson. It’s a good book that offers an insightful view take…

On Saturday, Washington Independent Writers gave its first annual Washington Writing Prize to . . . The Summer of 1787, by moi. They were nice enough to say that the book creates “a bright and colorful rendering of the extraordinary convention that created the American Constitution,” adding that this “unusually readable account… allows us to…